Monday, March 7, 2011

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The problem with releasing this book is that in doing so I am telling my story without the opportunity of receiving something interesting back from you about your faith journey.That makes me sad.But along came an idea of how a dialog can take place.I set up a web site.It is a blog.There is one blog entry for each item in the Table of Contents that contains story content.So, when you finish Chapter Two, “Prayer” you can select that topic from the blog archive list, make a comment and make the comment available in the way you desire, public or private.

You may do so by making yourself a logon at the book’s website mentioned below and on the last page of every one of the books parts.Perhaps in doing so an accumulation of information will help researchers to learn how to better research unusual, faith experiences.

After hearing my story my Uncle Louis told me about something special to his heart, how an angel came, lit up the room from his glow while there, and gave him reassurance.It happened during his turn while the family was watching and caring for his dying sister.

That is the whole reason why this book has an accompanying web site, so you can share your own stories from your faith journey.There is also a video on the page named “Take a Trip With Me to the City of Light” that allows you to take a virtual (pretend) animated trip to the City of Light. Use it to get more of a visual experience than the book ever could provide:

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Author (click pic)

John Christian EdwardsAIM: aFlower4aBud

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KIRKUS REVIEW

Kirkus Review

Debut author Edwards de­scribes a near-death ex­pe­ri­ence fol­low­ing a traf­fic ac­ci­dent, as­serting that the Bible con­firms what he saw on the other side.Evan­gel­i­cal tes­ti­mo­ny of life after death told in a calm, thought­ful and ra­tio­nal voice.

In 1966, Edwards, then a teen­ag­er in Fort Smith, Ar­kan­sas, was pinned under a car wreck. While in the hos­pi­tal in crit­i­cal con­di­tion, he had what he now claims to be a near-death ex­pe­ri­ence. He writes that re­cov­er­ing from a trau­mat­ic brain in­ju­ry and sorting out his mem­o­ries has been a long pr­ocess, one with lin­ger­ing neu­ro­log­i­cal af­ter­ef­fects, such as nar­co­lep­sy and a ten­den­cy to wan­der off topic (al­though the lat­ter never im­pairs his prose). How­ev­er, Edwards insists upon the au­then­tic­i­ty of his out-of-body tes­ti­mo­ny. Despite the fact that his eyes were gro­tesque­ly swollen shut and that his hos­pi­tal room af­ford­ed no view of the cor­ri­dor, he claims that he still clear­ly “saw” events on the ward. More­over, he says that his con­­trav­eled to a walled “City of Light,” a de­scrip­tion not unlike those of the New Jeru­salem in the books of Ezekiel and Revel­a­tion. He says that there, he watched his life play out on a cu­ri­ous array of mon­i­tors (stacked like Pez candy, he adds) as part of a di­vine eval­u­a­tion or judg­ment. How­ever, for a man who uses so many Scrip­ture ci­ta­tions to but­tress his case, he’s not a ste­reo­typ­i­cal Gos­pel wit­ness. For example, he writes that he’s dis­ap­pointed that some Chris­tian con­ser­va­tives refute NDEs on the grounds that non-Chris­tians have re­port­ed them as well. Edwards’ gently rea­soned re­sponse is that non-Chris­tians may get to see heaven, but it doesn’t mean they’re able to stay there. The author avidly reads sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals and has wide­ly stud­ied the sub­ject of NDEs; he even pro­vides an an­swer for non­be­liev­ers who say they saw noth­ing but black­ness dur­ing clin­i­cal death. Over­all, his ar­gu­ments pro­vide in­spi­ra­tion­al and in­tel­lec­tu­al manna for re­li­gious and sec­u­lar read­ers, al­though the faith­ful will likely be more ac­cli­mated to the fre­quent Bible verses.